A Review of Dry Etching of GaN and Related Materials


S.J. Pearton
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Florida

R. J. Shul
Sandia National Laboratories/New Mexico

Fan Ren
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Florida

This article was received on Wednesday, September 20, 2000 and accepted on Thursday, November 16, 2000.

Abstract

The characteristics of dry etching of the AlGaInN materials system in different reactor types and plasma chemistries are reviewed, along with the depth and thermal stability of etch-induced damage. The application to device processing for both electronics and photonics is also discussed.

Outline

  • Introduction
  • Plasma Reactors
  • Reactive ion etching.
  • High-density plasmas.
  • Chemically-Assisted Ion Beam Etching.
  • Reactive Ion Beam Etching.
  • Low Energy Electron Enhanced Etching.
  • Plasma Chemistries
  • Cl2-Based.
  • I2 and Br2 Based.
  • CH4/H2/Ar.
  • Etch Profile And Etched Surface Morphology
  • Plasma-Induced Damage
  • n-GaN.
  • p-GaN.
  • Schottky Diodes.
  • p-n Junctions.
  • Device Processing
  • Microdisk Lasers.
  • Ridge Waveguide Lasers.
  • Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors.
  • Field Effect Transistors.
  • UV Detectors.
  • Acknowledgments

    • Linked Pages

    Cite this article as: MRS Internet J. Nitride Semicond. Res. 5, 11(2000).

    last updated Wednesday, November 22, 2000 3:00:29 PM.

    © 2000 The Materials Research Society MRS Internet Journal of Nitride Semiconductor Research